Incubus at the 91X X-Fest

The 91X X-Fest took over the Cricket Amphitheater on July 16, 2011 and I was lucky enough to be there to photograph the headliners. The bands included Iration, Face to Face, Bush with Incubus closing the show. The photo pit was huge and not crowded making a big improvement over the 70 plus photographers at the Mayhem festival the previous week.

The interesting part was the mix of photographers at this show, some that I had seen before and others that acted like this was the first time they have ever shot a show. But hey, everyone needs to start somewhere. Then there are the folks shooting video and those with flashes on your cameras and those that climbed on anything to get a better vantage point. You all need to have a little professionalism and think about what you are doing.

I’ll start with the good. Incubus was a great band to shoot. The lead singer, Brandon Boyd is a real treat to photograph. He stalks around the stage with an old-fashioned microphone that adds to the images. The lighting was fun, bright lights, smoke, LED lights, and a big screen in the back. Seriously, I haven’t had this much fun shooting a band in a while. (Bush was the same but those images will be in a different post)

1/250 of a second, f/2.8 at ISO 1600

I really had a great time using the various lights to frame the images and frontman Brandon.

1/125 of a second, f/2.8 at ISO 1600

There are plenty more of my favorite images in the gallery below.

I really want to talk about the people who think that shooting video in the photo pit is a good idea. It isn’t and I am not going to stay out of your way. When I am shooting a show, I try really hard to stay out of other photographers way. I will go behind a photographer lining up their shot and will wait until they get what it is they are looking for. But when it comes to video, I am not going to wait the whole song or the whole solo or the whole anything. The main reason for this is that most of the time you are not supposed to be shooting video anyway and if you are, then you would be better off working out a deal to shoot from the soundboard where you get a better view and way better sound. And if you do shoot video from the pit, don’t just stick the camera in the air as high as you can in front of everyone… that’s just rude.